Using software synths for live gigs ?

GroupDIY Audio Forum

Help Support GroupDIY Audio Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

MartyMart

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 28, 2006
Messages
2,340
Location
Berlin for a while
Never done it as yet, have used Logic for simple live seq jobs and playback of audio "stems"

This would be "played" into a separate Macbook Pro with just a few software synths loaded.

Am I opening a "can of worms" or can Logic / Mainstage do the job reliably ??

Marty.
 
My friend used Logic to playback sequences and audio on his gigs and the software was pretty solid. The only issues he encountered was the Macbook pro which sometimes would overheat, freeze or shut down. He use to carry a second Macbook pro just incase but overall he thought it was pretty solid for a stage computer system setup.

He wasn't running the Macbook pro hot, overloading it with softsynths, plugins, etc. but running it safe. He set up his system stable first removing any unwanted junk like utilities, applications, etc which he wasnt using and he never came up with any software issues in his sets from what I know.

Maybe do a few test runs in a simulated environment. You only need to have it run solid for a couple of hours, so heat up your room and bounce around on the floor.
 
It will be much more stable than running a Tangerine Dream rig circa. 1977, or a Vince Clark rig circa 1988.  Get one of those cooling trays for the laptop, use a UPS, and "never sleep" and you will be golden.  Depeche Mode could only dream of such a rig in 1995.  It's time.
Mike
 
The Macbook system that runs the seq "audio stems" is Very clean and simple, just system / Logic Express
and driver for the FW 800
I installed a 7200 rpm drive so it runs the audio easily and saves wiring up an external HDD.

Weird thing is that on the other "softsynth" macbook pro, I can't seem to get the latency low enough
for "live" playing with no artifacts ... it is either too slow to respond or the buffer is so low that it gliches
now and then :-(
Bummer, will look at some more settings but I leave for Berlin in a couple of hours ....

MM.
 
sodderboy said:
  Get one of those cooling trays for the laptop, use a UPS, and "never sleep" and you will be golden.  Mike

I'm wondering what the advantage of a UPS would be when using a laptop ??

Also I know a keyboard player who uses the B4 virtual hammond program with a laptop for live dates with quite a well known act & never has problems.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top